CRS Announcing 2019 Crossing Boundaries Concert Series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE APRIL 8, 2019

CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) ANNOUNCES ITS
2019 CROSSING BOUNDARIES CONCERT SERIES CURATORS AND SEASON

Now in its second year, CROSSING BOUNDARIES is a performance series devoted to creating unforgettable live art experiences that dissolve boundaries between performers and audiences, traditional and new music, and the local and the global, bringing people together and promoting the awareness that we each possess a limitless creativity inside us. 

To curate this season, which is supported by a grant from the LMCC, CRS has selected three outstanding artists of Asian descent:

• GAMIN is a multi-instrumentalist woodwind player from Korea. She is one of the most celebrated piri, taepyeongso (Korean traditional oboe family) and saengwhang (ancient wind-blow instrument) performers in Korea and has been an artist-in-residence at the UPenn James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies since 2012.
  gamin-music.com
• JEN SHYU is a multilingual vocalist, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer of Taiwanese and Timorese descent, and a 2019 USA FELLOW in Music, 2018-19 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) recipient, 2016 Doris Duke Artist, Fulbright Scholar. Shyu has produced seven albums as a leader and has appeared on numerous best of lists, including The New York Times’ Best Albums of 2017.
  jenshyu.com
• JUNYI CHOW is a Malaysian born Chinese composer and multi-instrumentalist, first prize winner of the Singapore International Competition for Chinese Chamber Music Composition, and Composer-in-residence of the Vivo Experimental Orchestra from Malaysia and of The TENG Company from Singapore.
  junyichow.com

While open to everyone, CRS has from its inception in 2004 become known for presenting healing, arts, and cultural programs from around the world and from Asia in particular. There is a long tradition of interdisciplinarity in Asian arts, where ritual practices have always involved elements of dance, theatre, improvised music, and storytelling, and this season will build on that tradition.

Tickets to each concert are $25 in advance $30 at the door. Students and seniors with valid ID can purchase tickets for $20 at the door. Tickets are available online at crsny.org, by phone (212-677-8621), and at CRS.

 

The 2019 concert series schedule is as follows:

5/10    FOUR SYSTEMS 

curator — JunYi Chow

composer-performers:  Chatori Shimizu (cho, Japan), gamin (piri and saenghwang, Korea), YunZhuo Gan (Yangqin, China) and JunYi Chow (cello, Malaysia)

"Four Systems" integrates four compositions, one by each composer-performer, by means of improvisation and a projected graphic notation.       

     

5/31    ROSE OF SHARON

curator — gamin

           musical artists:  gamin, Minkyung Park (Korea), and Sangmi Kang (Korea)

visual artist:  Heejung Kim

“Rose of Sharon” is the national flower of Korea and so represents the people's identity. This performance employs both Korean traditional music (Yeonsanheosang, one of the most representative Korean traditional court music compositions) and contemporary art (mandala paintings) inspired by Buddhism.

 

6/14   MUSIC AND LIVE PAINTING IMPROVISATION

curator — JunYi Chow

musician:  Hu Jian Bing (Chinese sheng)

Live painting:  Kevork Mourad

 

8/9    FLY IN WATER

curator — gamin

concept:  Bo Choi (Korea) and Hyo Jee Kang (Korea)

composition and performance —  Hyo Jee Kang (piano)

wearable art: Bo Choi

“Fly in Water” is a structured improvisation and meditation on the inter-relationships between humanity, the environment, and the other life forms.

 

9/13   MOLDING

curator — gamin

lead artist — puppeteer Leah Ogawa (Japan)

musician — John Chao (Taiwan)

“Molding” is an object movement puppetry piece that showcases and explores the emotional journey of a character in a liminal space. It is her journey to face society’s expectations and to recognize and assimilate her true identity.

 

9/27    URBANSCAPE

curator — JunYi Chow

artists — Akiko Tokuoka (Japan) & Friends

“Urbanscape” will pair contemporary street/club dancers with musicians playing (mostly) acoustic instruments not typically seen together.

 

10/25  STRING NOISE

curator — gamin

musicians—String Noise (violin duo Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris)

composer — Ki Young Kim (Korea)

Avant-punk violin duo String Noise will explore the Korean/contemporary music of noted Korean composer Ki Young Kim.

 

12/13  ZERO GRASSES

curator — Jen Shyu (multilingual vocalist, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer of Taiwanese and East Timorese descent)

musician — Jen Shyu

“Zero Grasses” will include a video fieldwork presentation plus a short participatory intermedia workshop for the audience before the performance. The performance itself will feature new compositions by Ms. Shyu.

 

MORE ABOUT THE CURATORS

GAMIN is..."a true pioneer and innovator, leading these instruments in exciting new directions" — Ralph Samuelson (senior advisor of ACC_Asian Cultural Council) 

"gamin appears virtually unlimited as to the kinds of sounds she can get out of her instrument!" — Anthony Paul De, Ritis (composer, professor of Northeastern University) 

From 2000 to 2010, she was a member of the Contemporary Gukak Orchestra at the National Gukak Center, the hub for training and preserving Korean traditional music. 

gamin also studied the sinawi, the shaman ritual music. Due to her virtuosity, she can play from the very authentic jeongak and sinawi to contemporary music with electronic sounds as well. 

She has released three albums. 

She received a grant from the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism in 2011 and has performed at Harvard, Northwestern, Dartmouth, etc. and in Paris, Strasbourg, Freibrug, and Karlsruhe. 

Currently, as a yisuja* of the Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for piri and Daechita, she tries to preserve traditional music, and enhances the tradition as well. *yisuja is a title designated to someone who mastered a course study of intangible cultural assets of Korea. jeonsuja is a lower title. 

 

JEN SHYU has performed with saxophonist and 2014 MacArthur Fellow Steve Coleman since 2003 and has collaborated with many luminaries. Shyu has performed her own music at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, BAM, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubin Museum of Art, Asia Society, Blue Note, National Theater of Korea, etc. 

A Stanford graduate in opera with classical violin and ballet training, Shyu won many piano competitions and studied traditional music and dance in Cuba, Taiwan, Brazil, China, South Korea, East Timor and Indonesia. Shyu has won commissions and support from MAP Fund, the NEA, Jerome Foundation, etc., as well as fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council, Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc. 

Shyu has produced seven albums as a leader, the most recent two included on The New York Times’ Best Albums lists. Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times that her concerts are "the most arresting performances I’ve seen over the past five years. It’s not just the meticulous preparation of the work and the range of its reference, but its flexibility: She seems open, instinctual, almost fearless." 

 

Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, JUNYI CHOW began studying piano and music theory at the age of 5. He gained admittance into Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2005. After graduation in 2011, Chow began to study in the U.S. at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music as a student of P.Q. Phan, and completed his Master’s degree in May 2013. 

Chow has won many awards in various forms of music composition. He was the Second Prize of Taipei Chinese Orchestra International Composition Competition in 2010 with his Chinese Orchestra work, Kampung. In December 2010, his first symphonic work, Getaran, was commissioned and premiered by the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and toured Kuantan, Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Chow was also the finalist of 2013 United States ASCAP Morton Gould Prize. In March 2016, Chow’s Guanzi & Orchestra is selected to perform at the 2016 Hong Kong Chinese Chinese Orchestra International Composers’ Summit during Hong Kong Arts Festival. 

Chow is now the Composer-in-residence of Vivo Experimental Orchestra from Malaysia and The TENG Company from Singapore. Chow’s music has been performed in Malaysia, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, U.S.A., and Canada. As a pianist and cellist, Chow plays Classical repertoire as well as free improvisations with musicians in KL, Beijing, and NYC. 

 

CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a healing and art center founded by the Japanese writer Yasuko Kasaki in 2004 and located in Greenwich Village in NYC. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. The Center’s staff trains people to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding the Center has supported dance, theatre, music and visual artists but now focuses mostly on supporting musicians and visual artists. 

Since 2015, the Center has presented 12 programs of the concert series Four Seasons of Japan: Gems of Japanese Music by renowned koto/shamisen player Yoko Reikano Kimura. The Center has also presented musicians such as Morio Agata (top 10 hit “Red Colored Elegy”), Senri Oe (Best Male Pop Artist in Japan 1988), Minegishi Issui (4th Iemoto, or heir, of the Seikyo-do Ichigenkin Traditionvirtuoso), shakuhachi master Ralph Samuelson, and former US jazz ambassador Scott Robinson, among many others.

Art exhibitions have included works from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and by photographer Annie Ling (The National Museum of Iceland permanent collection), and sculptor Yasuka Rita (Shell Art Award).

Dance/theatre artists presented include BESSIE-winning Yoshiko Chuma and Jennifer Nugent; Obie winner Karen Kandel, Columbia Theatre professor Sita Mani, and Alexandra Beller (nominee for Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography and former member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company), among many others.

Crossing Boundaries is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by LMCC. LMCC empowers artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support, to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Manhattan and beyond.

The Center has received funding this year from LMCC, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and in recent years from corporate sponsors Doggy’s Clothing and Tesco Electronic, Inc., and from a variety of individual donors.